With the New Hampshire presidential primary fast approaching, it might be time to look at two of the Republican candidates who’ve often drawn comparisons in the mainstream media. Namely, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and 2008 GOP runner-up Mitt Romney. The rap on both men is very similar, i.e. both are technocratic, not very inspiring-yet seemingly competent-moderates who have extreme difficulties rallying the Republican faithful. And while Mr. Huntsman has increased the pace of his attacks on Governor Romney in recent days, you can’t help but notice the similarities between the two candidates.

While many conservative pundits have attempted-unsuccessfully in my view-to argue that Huntsman is an unabashed conservative, you can’t help but get the impression that supporters of past presidential campaigns by Pete McCloskey, John Anderson, Arlen Specter, and Lynn Martin, among many other liberal politicians who sought the GOP nod, said the very same thing about their preferred candidate. The fact remains that Huntsman-much like Mitt Romney, who garnered only one percent of  voters who labeled conservatism as their top priority in the Iowa caucuses-appeals predominately to those Republicans who are outliers within the party. They both garner plaudits from institutional left wing media organs and earn scorn from right wing opinion shapers, although Huntsman’s seemingly conscious effort to attack conservative sacred cows, and like defeated presidential candidate John McCain-one of Romney’s newest supporters-gratuitously insult conservatives, no doubt makes him a preferable opponent of President Obama to people like Stephen Colbert. 

Granted, there are some differences, both substantive and superficial, between the two men that require acknowledgement. While Mitt Romney’s rhetorical bellicosity towards China has been much remarked upon during this campaign, Huntsman-reflecting his history as a diplomat-has gone out of his way to allay concerns that a trade war between the PRC and the United States is imminent. Another distinction between the two is their approach with respect to national security and foreign policy issues. A perfect illustration of how they differ can be found in this exchange between the men over what should be done in the Afghanistan theater of war. But perhaps the greatest divide between the two candidates lies in an issue that has thus far escaped critical scrutiny, which is to say immigration.

While Huntsman has adopted the line of the open borders lobby-including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose leadership has slandered any patriotic American who embraces sensible immigration policies even as Mormons die as a result-Romney has thus far espoused one of the toughest stances against illegal immigration to be found among Republican challengers to Barack Obama. He has pledged to veto the DREAM Act, opposed sanctuary cities, supported E-Verify, and highlighted the importance of employer sanctions, which everyone recognizes as the keystone of any successful regime of immigration enforcement in this country. It was the relentless criticism of Romney-and to a lesser extent, Michele Bachmann-that torpedoed the presidential aspirations of Rick Perry, which we can all be grateful for. And perhaps most impressively of all, when pressed to explain how he would deal with illegal aliens who remain in this country despite stepped-up enforcement efforts, he gave the perfect answer. 

Even so, there are good arguments to be made against Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy from a patriotic immigration reform perspective. Beyond the accusation that his tough stance against illegal immigration is merely a cynical political ploy-an accusation whose refutation is not helped by gaffes like these-there is Romney’s distressing support for H1-B visas and legal immigration mechanisms that are not only rife with fraud but existentially harmful to American citizens. However, even when you take into account these severe limitations, Mitt Romney still can be said to have a far superior record on issues of immigration and border security than his fellow Mormon ex-governor, Jon Huntsman. Whether good enough is good enough is a question that Republican voters will have to answer for themselves. 

One of the most persistent divides between traditional conservatives and their libertarian/anarcho-capitalist counterparts involves a fundamental philosophical disagreement about immigration. While most conservatives view immigration primarily through the lens of preserving American culture by only accepting those immigrants who are assimilable and will tangibly benefit our society in the future, a view expressed repeatedly during debates over illegal immigration in this country, many libertarians view the subject in an altogether different light. For them, the question is not so much whether a particular cohort of immigrants will be an asset to the United States but whether we have any right to prevent them from settling in this country in the first place, which many answer in the negative.

Libertarians extol the primacy of individual rights, which in this case entails the right to emigrate from your country of birth whenever you so desire-something that I don’t think any conservative would take issue with-and to immigrate to whatever country you want to live and/or work in for an extended period of time, which is where the divide between the two camps emerges. Libertarians view the issue as one of freedom of association-and by extension, contract-wherein willing employers, such as large agribusinesses and meatpacking plants, seek out willing employees coming from nations with under-performing economies that can’t meet the personal and financial needs of their citizens. They believe that the nexus between trade and unfettered migration is inextricable, if not completely self-evident, and that the two can not be severed if a nation hopes to grow its economy. While this may well be true as a matter of law, there are numerous holes in this thesis intellectually, which opponents of open borders-even anarcho-capitalists such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe-have exposed through well-researched arguments of their own.

However, underlying the debate over whether immigration and settlement is a natural right is the assumption that all libertarians/anarcho-capitalists agree on the immigration issue, which is not as much of  a given as it would seem on the surface of things. One of the things that I’ve attempted to do with American Rattlesnake is debunk commonly held assumptions about immigration issues, and the assumption that libertarians all subscribe to Gary Johnson’s point of view is one that needs to be reexamined. There are many libertarians and  anarcho-capitalists who recognize both the practical difficulties and existential problems inherent in society based upon unfettered immigration, especially one with the vast social welfare apparatus of the United States. One of the chief exponents of the view that welfare programs need to be curtailed in order to solve the immigration problem is Gary Johnson’s opponent in the Republican presidential race, Congressman Ron Paul. Paul has repeatedly emphasized the need to do away with the generous, taxpayer subsidized social welfare programs that-while not serving as the initial magnet-provide incentives for illegal aliens to extend their stay in this country indefinitely. The population density of legal immigrants is also heavily correlated with the availability of welfare benefits. Even acclaimed economist Milton Friedman, who held a rather benign view of immigration in general, emphasized the incompatibility of a welfare state with unfettered immigration.

The same opinion is held by many libertarians today, including self-professed constitutionalist Andrew Napolitano, who views Arizona’s landmark immigration law primarily through the prism of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and potential violations of the 4th Amendment via racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers. I’m not sure that the Constitutional objection to statewide laws is dispositive, because-as Andrew McCarthy has pointed out repeatedly in National Review-there is no precedent for prohibiting states from enforcing laws that are consistent with federal statutes. Furthermore, if we look to the broader issue of legal immigration, there’s nothing to suggest that the men who drafted the United States Constitution supported the sort of unfettered immigration we have endured since passage of the Hart-Celler Act fundamentally altered this nation’s demographic destiny. This is a concept that is seldom grasped by arm-chair commentators on immigration these days, whose default option is to repeat the platitudinous-not to mention, factually incorrect-bromide that we are a “nation of immigrants.” What they neglect to mention is that most this nation’s founding fathers would have been implacably opposed to the present lassez-faire system of immigration, a fact that Thomas Woods-as anti-statist an individual as you’ll find among academics-expertly limns in this Human Events column published during the height of the amnesty debate in Washington D.C.

Yet, even if we were to concede that there’s no firm historical or Constitutional foundation for this nation’s current open borders policies, can it not be argued that there is a compelling moral case for the views espoused by those at the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Cato Institute, Reasonoids, and other trendy, beltway cosmotarians? You would definitely think so if you took their arguments at face value. The notion that we have no moral basis for barring certain immigrants from entry into the United States is certainly widespread in certain libertarian circles, but I don’t believe that makes the idea, ipso facto, libertarian. Julian Simon, in a 1998 essay published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, articulated the perspective felt by many that individual autonomy takes precedence over other “public” goods, including our national borders. In an anarcho-capitalist reality, nation-states would not exist, therefore deciding who should or should not be admitted to your nation would be a moot point.

But while it might seem logical that freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of contract-and at its most essential level, the individual him or herself-are all prioritized over the wishes and feelings of citizens who have a vested interested in preserving the character of their nation, there are those that don’t think these competing values are necessarily mutually exclusive. In a persuasive essay written for Lew Rockwell several years ago, N. Stephan Kinsella made a very compelling argument that while the disposition of property in our society is unjust-insofar as the state has no right to expropriate land that rightfully belongs to individuals-so long as that property is entrusted to the state it has a responsibility to act as caretaker for the rightful owners. In this case, it has the responsibility to prevent the ingress of people that citizens do not want to welcome into their country. While those who are opposed to communitarianism in even its most minimal form might reject Kinsella’s public pool analogy, I think he makes a convincing case that some prophylactic measures need to be enforced to prevent the exploitation of your property-even if it’s already been subjected to theft by the state.

There are many cogent arguments against the current trendy libertarian support for open borders, several of them outlined by the first presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, John Hospers, in paper published by the Journal of Libertarian Studies over a decade ago entitled A Libertarian Argument Against Open Borders. The concluding paragraph of the essay is especially perceptive in its analysis of the problem:

Occasionally, we hear the phrase “limousine liberals” used to describe the members of the liberal establishment who send their children to expensive private schools while consigning all the others to the public school system, which educates these children so little that by the time they finish the eighth grade they can barely read and write or do simple arithmetic, or make correct change in a drug store. It would be equally appropriate, however, to describe some other people as ”limousine libertarians” —those who pontificate about open borders while remaining detached from the scenes that their “idealism” generates. They would do well to reflect, in their ivory towers, on whether the freedom they profess for those who are immigrants, if it occurs at all, is to be brought about at the expense of the freedom of those who are not.

This passage describes, in a nut shell, the quintessence of cosmotarianism, and why most Americans-and even some in the libertarian movement-continue to reject it. I could post the most meticulously researched George Borjas journal article, the most statistically devastating backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, or the most irrefutable essay by Mahattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald. And although all of these sources are invaluable in the fight to define the terms of this debate, they wouldn’t hold a candle to the self-evident fact that none of the greatest exponents and defenders of open borders, be it Tamar Jacoby, or Jason Riley, or Nick Gillespie, abide by their own exhortations. None of these individuals partake of the glorious mosaic which their unyielding ideology has done so much to create.

You won’t find many Reason Magazine editors or Cato Institute scholars living in Bergenfield, New Jersey, Maywood, California, or Eagle Pass, Texas. Why, you might ask? Because they would rather pass off the tremendous costs of their bankrupt philosophy onto ordinary Americans than to admit that they might just be wrong. These people are insulated from unfettered immigration’s worst effects, including chronic unemployment, violent crime, and environmentally devasting pollution from Arizona to California and throughout the country. They have the luxury of ignoring the impact of this country’s changing demographic profile while promoting the patently absurd notion that our open borders are a boon to all but the small percentage of high school dropouts.

What’s more, they make the equally ludicrous assertion-outlined in the Caplan speech above-that importing millions of unskilled, uneducated immigrants, who will be dependent upon costly government services, from quasi-socialist nations will expand this nation’s economic liberty. Forget the fact that we now enjoy less economic freedom than our northern neighbors, a development concurrent with the greatest expansion of immigration in this country’s history, the entire premise underlying this concept is flawed. You do not build a prosperous, 21st century, post-industrial society around foreigners from countries with low human capital. And the amount of time, energy and economic resources that need to be shifted in order to improve the educational prospects and earning potential of these immigrants, e.g. the billions funneled into ESL programs each year, is so cost prohibitive that it outweighs whatever benefits can be gleaned from such an arrangement.

Another seeming inconsistency in the archetypal libertarian solution to our immigration problem is the reluctance of most libertarians to support any sort of relief for American taxpayers who are tasked with paying for millions of illegal aliens and immigrants who are dependent upon costly social services. Particularly, public schooling and emergency health care. Invoking Friedman’s argument once again, we find that while many libertarians will concede that dependency upon welfare programs is a bad thing they will do nothing to limit access to these programs by illegal aliens or permanent residents. To the contrary, if any such bill-which is immigration neutral-is proffered, they will stalwartly oppose it. Just ask new Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who supports the DREAM Act, despite the fact that taxpayers would be subsidizing the in-state tuition discounts of its recipients. Paleolibertarian writer Ilana Mercer deftly skewers  purported libertarians who routinely call for the abolition of the welfare state while adding a proviso that excludes immigrants and illegal aliens from the fiscal demands of their libertopia.

True believers in liberty, like Mercer and the late Murray N. Rothbard, recognize the inherent contradiction in persuading your fellow Americans to reject the embrace of the state while simultaneously welcoming millions of non-Americans into the country who prefer a larger and more intrusive government in almost every respect into our society. They realize that the banal platitudes used to support unfettered immigration are grossly inaccurate, if not transparent lies. They also realize that the interests of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, and the hospitality industry do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the free market, and that to a large extent our current immigration policy is another form of corporate welfare, which putative libertarians would be quick to denounce in any other context. The time-saving, productivity-increasing technological innovations that would normally be welcomed by these same individuals are rejected by those who apparently think pre-industrial stoop labor is the best method of improving  our agricultural production. Finally, they recognize that the  utopian, globalist conception of freedom-where people living in Gabon or the Hadhramaut have just as much say in how we are governed as American citizens living in New York-contravenes the distinctively American, Constitutional, federalist, representative republic designed by this nation’s founding fathers.

In short, the issue before the house is not whether it is an abandonment of principle for libertarians to embrace sensible immigration restrictions, it’s why institutional libertarians representing organizations like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation have stifled an honest, open intellectual debate about this subject. Even as the negative repercussions of our government’s devotion to open borders become harder to ignore for all but the most oblivious, the gatekeepers of respectable opinion on this subject continue to narrow the parameters of discussion to their own narrow, ahistorical perspective. I don’t expect that to change any time in the near future, but those of us who want an intellectually honest debate about the most important issue of our time can at least begin to clarify its terms, if for no other reason than to educate those novices interested in how mass immigration has impacted our society who are asking themselves how they should view these changes from a liberty-oriented perspective.

Perhaps it takes a cartoon of foul-mouthed fourth graders to help us see the light.  Illegal immigration is as bad for Mexico as it is for the United States.

Online access to episodes of  South Park is limited.  ”The Last of the Meheecans” will be viewable online for a short time after the original October 12th air date, but after that you’ll have to wait a month before it is again available online.

This video segment was broadcast over two years ago! As you might well imagine, the situation on our southern border has not improved in the intervening years. All you need do to discover just how dangerous it is for our nation’s Border Patrol agents is peruse a random sampling of stories posted to the M3 Report, which reveals the anarchy that currently reigns on the Mexican-American border and within the boundaries of Mexico itself. Perhaps that explains the desire on the part of the Obama administration to extend the deployment of National Guard, even as the same officials work assiduously to undermine immigration enforcement domestically. 

Despite the worst inclinations of this administration regarding immigration policy, the current occupant of the White House needs to acknowledge-if only superficially-the gravity of the problem we are facing. 

Hat Tip: Nafbpo Ferg

A few observations about last night’s Republican presidential debate, at least as it pertains to the subjects of immigration and border control:

-Newt Gingrich, despite his previous record of supporting amnesty, acquitted himself quite well. At least, rhetorically. His suggestion that American citizens be able to review prospective immigrants, although impractical in theory, does put the emphasis of immigration in the right place. Namely, in the hands of Americans who are seeking the best and the brightest, rather than simply empowering those who want to settle in this country. Millions, perhaps billions, of individuals would immigrate to the United States if afforded the opportunity, but I think it’s our responsibility to consider the opinions of all Americans, naturalized and native-born citizens alike, rather than simply assume that every single person seeking to come here is doing so in good faith. 

-Herman Cain nicely defused the accusation that he’s a xenophobic vigilante, vis-a-vis the issue of border control, by explaining that he favored the construction of fences as well as welcoming new, legal immigrants who sought to contribute to American society. He noted that you can be both generous and firm on this issue, and that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. I also thought he tackled the amnesty question with aplomb, noting that there does exist a “path to citizenship,” which entails immigrating to this country legally. It would have been nice if he had coupled this with pragmatic suggestions about how to eliminate much of the byzantine federal bureaucracy that currently impedes the process for highly talented, law-abiding foreign nationals.

-Ron Paul continued to attempt a precarious balancing act which entails pandering to the liberal, open borders faction among libertarians, while retaining some of the pro-enforcement, hawkish, paleocons who have supported past campaigns. Personally, I don’t think he succeeded. Yes, the welfare state is an attractive nuisance to people from across the globe, and is a huge part of any discussion, but to merely focus on that aspect to the neglect of every other problem unfettered immigration poses-particularly the allocation of scarce resources-is misguided. And although I agree with Rep. Paul that employers are put in an unenviable position-punished for employing illegals yet also prohibited from inquiring into their legal status in many instances-I do believe that a sovereign government has a right to determine who is and is not admitted to its country. And as long as states can Constitutionally establish labor laws, I think it’s hard to proclaim that they don’t also have the ability to proscribe the employment of people who are living in this country illegally.

-Jon Huntsman attempted to run away from his uniformly dreadful record on immigration and immigration enforcement issues to no avail. I suppose he should be credited for at least rhetorically stepping away from the default Bush/McCain stance, although I doubt his sincerity.

Other than that, there’s not much to be said about last night’s Republican presidential primary debate as far as immigration is concerned. We didn’t hear many new proposals, and despite some good answers regarding illegal immigration, there was not enough focus on proactive approaches to reducing immigration levels to a sustainable level in the near future. For a brief recap on what was said at the debate, check out the Twitter stream of Numbers USA, the nation’s premiere, grassroots organization lobbying on behalf of immigration enforcement and reform.

The ringleaders behind the premeditated murder of special agent Zapata continue to be rounded up south of the border, including two very important handlers of the criminals who shot Zapata and his fellow ICE agent, Victor Avila.

However, I’d like take a step back from the gritty details of this investigation and examine the some of the misguided media coverage of the purported “root causes” of the attack on these two courageous ICE agents. Specifically, the ongoing libertarian narrative that decriminalizing drugs and opening our borders will somehow cause narco-criminal/paramilitary groups like the Zetas and Beltran-Levy cartels to magically disappear. 

For the record, I do support some form of marijuana decriminalization, not because I think it will be a panacea for solving the problems currently afflicting Mexico, but because I believe the costs of enforcing pot prohibition have come to outweigh the perceived benefits to the American public. Plus, it is the sort of drug that can be regulated in a relatively routine manner, a la alcohol or tobacco, without incurring great social or economic costs as a society. It would probably decrease the profit margin of most Mexican drug cartels as well, since over sixty percent of the drugs that are imported to the U.S. through Mexico are controlled by gangs that subsist on the profits of marijuana cultivation and/or distribution. 

That being said, one of the things that irritates me to no end is the assumption by the left-and for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll include libertarians in that group since they agree with the left wholeheartedly on both Mexico and emigration from Mexico-is the notion that it is the proliferation of drugs in this country-and violence directly related to those drugs in Mexico-is somehow uniquely America’s responsibility. A perfect illustration of this misguided chain of reasoning can be found in a column by the usually perceptive Mary Anastasia’s O’Grady, which was published by the Wall St. Journal the other day. Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch’s desire to monetize every piece of his media empire means the column is behind a subscription pay wall. 

However, if you are a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal-and despite its wrongheaded editorial stance on immigration, it is as good a newspaper as you’ll find in today’s charred media landscape-you would read a column that essentially said we are at fault for the murderous criminals wreaking havoc across the Mexican landscape, including-presumably-the unjustified attacks on agents Avila and Zapata. She even goes so far as to quote approvingly the former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Casteneda,  a wide-ranging pundit, former Communist, and overall slanderer of America and Americans, in support of her assertions. Although, ironically enough, he disagrees with Ms. O’Grady on the issue that is the subject of her patently absurd column. 

The notion that we are at fault for Mexico’s problems is not only factually incorrect, it is incontestably racist, if we believe racism to be the application of different sets of standards to different groups of people based upon their skin color, ethnicity, or the cultural-linguistic group to which they belong. As my lodestar in all things in this life, the great Adam Carolla, concludes, 

I’d argue that the guilty white liberals in this country are actually more racist. Take the example of drugs coming in from Mexico. The left is basically apologizing to Mexico and explaining that it’s our consumption of these drugs that’s creating the market and funding their corrupt government, police, and army. It’s not the drug dealers’ fault, it’s our fault for consuming the drugs…While constantly completely about racism, they engage in the ultimate racism. They treat Mexico as if they are inferior and incapable of governing themselves. If these drugs were coming out of Canada, they wouldn’t be blaming the U.S. They would insist that Canada fix the problem and fucking fast. It’s belittling and far more racist. 

Just replace the word “liberals” with libertarians and you’ll see our point. BTW, if you haven’t already bought a copy of Adam Carolla’s latest book-I have a hardcover copy, my friend has the book on tape-DO IT, NOW! It even has a great page devoted to explaining why the “building a fence never works” people are complete retards. Here’s the Amazon link where you can purchase the book. Trust me, it’ll be the best twenty-five bucks you’ve ever spent in this country. 

In conclusion, libertarians don’t know what they’re talking about-at least with regard to the inextricably linked issues of Mexico and immigration-and Adam Carolla is awesome.

It turns out that the U.S. is not the only country worried about the lax security and enforcement mechanisms at its borders. Like dozens of other nation-states and regional entities both in Europe and elsewhere, the Greek government has now realized that having an unprotected border can endanger its citizens, and would-be migrants, in manifold ways.

My favorite part of this story is the explicit admission by the Citizen Protection Minister-don’t you wish we had one of those here-that the barrier being constructed between his nation and Turkey is almost identical to the much-maligned yet incomplete fence between the United States and our neighbor to the south.

Papoutsis said the land barrier would be like the one erected by the United States along parts of its border with Mexico.

I believe the upshot of this story is that fences do work, even if they do not constitute a panacea in and of themselves, a straw man argument that even the most forceful advocates of immigration enforcement have never postulated.

That being said, a fence has never hurt anyone, contrary to the bleatings of open borders enthusiasts the world over.

One of the interesting things about conventional wisdom is that very often it turns out to be based upon assumptions that are false. A case in point being the widespread misconception that all Americans whose family origins lie in Latin America and the Caribbean are reflexively pro-mass immigration and in favor of amnesty, when in fact most of these people have more nuanced views on the subject.Just as some Hispanic Americans view newcomers to this country as family or compatriots, others view them as economic competitors,  as the results from this Pew Hispanic Center survey illustrate. Also, it would appear that the Latino community-insofar as such a set of linguistically and ethnically diverse groups can be said to constitute a single community-has also soured on the de facto amnesty illegal aliens in this country currently enjoy. 

Mark Krikorian has some interesting observations about this poll-and a link to his organization’s own poll on the subject-over at NRO. Of particular interest is his exploration of the inherent flaws in Pew’s methodology, which neglects to include an attrition through enforcement option for potential survey-takers to choose from, relying instead upon a black-and-white choice between wholesale deportation of illegal aliens or de jure amnesty. Despite this flaw, the results from the Pew Hispanic Center are worth examining more closely. They have the most accurate data on this subject, even if their aims are misguided from my point of view.

I’m always sceptical of open-borders politicians who suddenly have epiphanies related to immigration the minute their careers are imperiled. Such is the case with Senator John McCain, who’s decided to call out President Obama for his administration’s indifference to border issues.

As absurd as it may seem for someone who was the chief co-sponsor of the last major effort to enact amnesty to damn anyone for being insufficiently tough on border issues,  Senator McCain does deserve, at the very least, a golf clap for his efforts. Call me cynical, but something tells me that this hawkishness on the border will evaporate once he is comfortably re-elected. However, if he does decide to stick to his newly acquired convictions-again, an unlikely proposition-he wouldn’t be the first person to have changed course in recent years.

Bill Kristol-a man rightly criticized for his open borders stance in the past-has opposed recent attempts at enacting amnesty by men like Senator McCain, and has even gone so far as to endorse SB 1070 publicly.  Bill Bennett, one of the leading opponents of Proposition 187, has blurbed a brilliant book written by Mark Krikorian, the head of the Center of Immigration Studies, something that would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

I think the salient point here is that people can and do change their previously held positions on hotly contested issues-such as mass immigration and securing our borders-even if doing so lends itself to charges of hypocrisy or political opportunism. In Senator McCain’s case, I do think his recent reversals on immigration are due almost exclusively to the recent electoral scare he has experienced. That being said, we should be willing to embrace anyone who sincerely reconsiders his or her open borders opinions.